Sure, super-sweet abilities and nearly magical skills (or truly magical depending on the genre) are given to them by popular culture in books and movies and video games, but under the hype all you have is a killer. For a writer this makes them uniquely challenging characters. Readers need to identify with your protagonist. But how do you make a cold blooded killer sympathetic?

Often assassin characters only kill in self defense, and only bad guys. A few years ago I read a fantasy novel about an assassin who is never shown killing a single person! But when they are done right they are golden. David Gemmell’s redeemable anti-hero makes Waylander one of my favorite books.

Why do I love assassins? Because I can’t resist the challenge.

[Wrath of the White Tigress][1], featuring Jaska the Slayer, originated from a short story I wrote back in college. The story featured a character inspired by a class of assassins from a fantasy RPG that I cowrote. A few years later, I recalled the short story and decided to revise it. Questions about that world and the character immediately popped into my head. Many things changed. The entire setting for one. I thought about how assassins are detestable people. 

My chief concern: What led Jaska Bavadi to become a killer? I thought of a number of motivations, most of them done many times before. Then it occurred to me: What if he’d never intended to become an assassin? What if the very person he most loved and trusted in the world had him under mind control? What would happen when the chains that bound him broke and he learned the truth, that he was not a champion of the people but the top killer in a ruthless regime?

Thus was born the Jaska Bavadi you see in Wrath of the White Tigress. An assassin who never meant to be anything but a warrior protecting the innocent. As if Bruce Wayne were actually the Joker but thought he was Batman because of the mind control of Alfred who is secretly Ra’s al Ghul. 

He thought he was a hero. She showed him the truth. Now he’ll do anything to stop the man who made him a monster.

Speaking of the chains that bind … After I completed Wrath of the White Tigress I decided, again, to polish up that short story. I changed the character’s name and switched it to the Pawan Kor setting. The original story protagonist, in case you can’t tell, lacked sufficient motivation for slaying. I started to motivate him again. 

Wouldn’t you know it, the story grew and another novel was born: Chains of the Dark Goddess, which will be out in June. It’s the spiritual sequel to Wrath of the White Tigress and features another appearance by the mysterious Nalsyrra. 

The protagonist in Chains is not an assassin, however, but a vengeful killer out to punish those who wronged him, an anti-hero willing to destroy the world to save the one he loves most. 

You’ll never get to read that short story, but if I ever run out of novel ideas (not likely), I’ll have that little nugget of story gold there just in case. 

The Storm Dragon’s Heart

Go forth and download. Or wait until Saturday and buy it.

And if you already own it, go forth and … write a review!

At least tweet about it.

The preeminent American book of all things grammatical and fussy, the Strunk & White, doesn’t seem to fully grasp the passive voice either.2 And so many American English teachers worship this text, perpetuating the problem.

Now if you learned English formally as a second language in a country other than the U.S., you probably learned passive voice correctly and the article I’m about to link to may be sort of duh to you. My apologies. I first learned passive voice wasn’t what I thought it was due to a blog comment (not on this site) by someone who formally learned English as a second language.

Fortunately, by that time I had already figured out that there wasn’t anything wrong with was’s or is’s in my writing. A few years back after reading several Rowling, Gemmell, and Moorcock books back-to-back, it occurred to me that with their frequent use of was their writing was technically bad. (Based on advice I’ve seen from teachers and American fiction editors.) I had a good laugh, realized that voice and story are far more important, and overcame much that had restrained my writing style. (We must all come to these points in life, in one subject or another.)

This fascinating article on Passive Voice from the University of North Carolina will help you figure out what passive voice really is. I’ve excerpted their list of passive voice myths below.

Myths

1. Use of the passive voice constitutes a grammatical error.
2. Any use of “to be” (in any form) constitutes the passive voice.
3. The passive voice always avoids the first person; if something is in first person (“I” or “we”) it’s also in the active voice.
4. You should never use the passive voice.
5. I can rely on my grammar checker to catch the passive voice.

All of these are well explained on their site. I highly recommend it for anyone who spends any significant amount of time writing.

Don’t be misled like I was. Too many to be verbs may result in lackluster writing that lacks action and verve, but that doesn’t mean the result is passive or wrong. Passive voice itself isn’t wrong when used appropriately. And trust me, too many active verbs ends up giving your prose a strained and unnatural feeling, lacking in natural rhythm and style.

Anyways, you can be the judge of my own grammatical follies and idiosyncrasies in my books: Wrath of the White Tigress and The Storm Dragon’s Heart. Check them out and just see if you can remember to pay attention to grammar all the way through. (There’s no reward if you can. Copyeditors need not apply.)

As authors, we spend a lot of time trying to promote our books. Our biggest obstacle is obscurity because there are a lot of books out there. No, really. A lot.

We like to think that good stories are all it takes to make it (in author terms “make it” usually means “become well known enough and sell enough books that I can quit my day job and write for a living”), but you can doubtlessly think of mediocre books that are selling bazillions of copies and authors you love who never make it out of the “mid-list” category.

Sometimes it’s just the author (or publishing house) with the biggest marketing budget who wins, but you, as a reader, have amazing power. Don’t believe for a second that you don’t have anything to do with whether an author makes it, because you do. A lot. No, really. A lot.

Why does this matter to you? Well, authors who get to quit their day jobs can write faster and put more books out for you!

The following are some little things you can do that can make a big difference. Some of them only take a few seconds. Your favorite authors will appreciate the effort. Trust me.

Helping out on Amazon

Amazon is the big kahuna of book sellers, especially when it comes to ebooks, so helping an author “get found” on there can give them a big boost. You can certainly do these things on other bookstore sites as well (nothing against copying and pasting a review, for example), but Amazon tends to have more cool features to help an author get found.

Here’s the list (any one of these things can help):

• If you do nothing else, consider writing a review on Amazon, even if the book already has quite a few and/or you’ve reviewed it elsewhere. There’s evidence that ratings and reviews factor into the Amazon algorithms that decide which books are promoted on the site (i.e. certain books are recommended to customers who bought books in similar genres). If reviewing isn’t your bag, don’t worry about writing paragraphs-long in-depth studies of the book; maybe you could just pen a few sentences with a couple of specifics about why you liked the book.

• “Tag” the book with genre-appropriate labels (i.e. thriller, steampunk, paranormal romance). You don’t have to leave a review to do this; you just need an account at Amazon. A combination of the right tags and a good sales ranking can make a book come up when customers search for that type of story on Amazon.

• Give the book a thumb’s up. This takes less than a second and probably doesn’t do much, but it may play into Amazon’s algorithms to a lesser extent than reviews/ratings.

• Make a “Listmania” List and add your favorite authors’ books to it. This creates another avenue for new readers to find books. It’s better to create lists around similar types of books (i.e. genres or sub-genres) than to do a smorgasbord, and consider titling it something description so folks will be more inclined to check it out, ie. “Fun heroic fantasy ebooks for $5 or less”

• If you have a Kindle, highlight some wise or fun quotations from the book and share them publicly (if enough people share their highlights, they’ll show up at the bottom of a book’s page).

Helping out with Social Media

If you’re involved with Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc., you can give your favorite authors a shout-out when they release new books. If they blog, you can follow their site (through Google Reader or other RSS readers) and share the link when they post something that may be interesting to your friends. If they’re on Twitter, you can follow them and retweet their links now and then.

Authors don’t expect you to follow them 24/7 and repeat everything they say (that might actually alarm some folks…), but a little promotional help now and then is greatly appreciated.

If you like to be social about books, you can join sites such as Goodreads, Shelfari, or LibraryThing. You can help your favorite authors by posting reviews and talking about their books on those sites, or you can just use those places to find online reading buddies with common interests.

Helping out with Your Blog

Do you ever talk about books or what you’re reading on your blog? You might consider reviewing your favorite authors on your site (you could even make a few dollars if you signed up as an Amazon affiliate).

Also, if most of your favorites maintain websites, you could add an “author blogroll” list in your menu with links to those sites.

And Lastly…

These days, most authors have websites and contact forms so you can get in touch. If you enjoyed their work, consider sending them a short note to let them know. While it won’t help them sell more books, it’ll make their day.

Thanks for reading (this post and books in general!).

This post was originally composed by Lindsay Buroker and is shared with permission.

Some of you may be wondering: Where are all the books David promised us in late 2011? I’ve read Wrath of the White Tigress and The Storm Dragon’s Heart and now I want more. More, damn it, more!

I am deeply sorry. Nothing would make me happier than having more books out for you to read.

I am working on the next book, but things are going slowly. And at this point I’m four months behind on my publishing schedule. It’s likely that I’ll be five months behind once December ends.

I’ve been stressed by intermittent familial obligations over the last 16 months. For most of that time I was able to keep pace with my work and so I thought I could get out a number of books late this year in spite of it all. In June, the stress of obligations ratcheted up but then cooled off again. I was a month behind pace then, but figured I could catch up.

Then came September.

I won’t go into details because they would do neither me nor you any good and most of it is private in nature. Suffice to say, my parents have been in dire need of my assistance. And when my time isn’t directly occupied by helping them, I find myself unable to work. The stress of the situation sometimes leaves my mind vacant of creativity and I want nothing but rest or some mindless endeavor.

In short, I’m having to take care of things only I can take care of, things I do out of love and respect for my family. Things that are not pleasant and leave me little creative time.

But in January, my time will be my own again. The bits of work I can manage now will become torrents and new work shall appear.

A common argument–complaint, maybe–that I overhear is that there’s nothing new to fantasy, everything is either a re-hash of Tolkein or paranormal romance. How would you contest that?

As far as basic story structure goes, nothing is new. I’ve studied a lot of mythology and storytelling and… I don’t want to bore your readers. Suffice to say: Everything is new; nothing is new. Originality is overrated. I think sci-fi and fantasy fans tend to worry about this a lot more than most readers. I mean, there’s nothing new in thrillers or mystery or romance either, so why should fantasy be any different?
On the other hand, the details and specifics of every story are different and frequently highly original. Every author mixes the basics differently and brings new things to the table because every writer is intrinsically different.
And I have yet to see as many Tolkien clones as some readers like to claim. I have only seen two or three close copies, and even those didn’t have the same texture as LotR.

And for the record, a reading of Northern European mythology will dull one’s view of Tolkien’s originality. Not saying he didn’t create a lot or original material, but he also borrowed a good bit himself.

• The Storm Dragon’s Heart: Kindle, Nook
• Wrath of the White Tigress: Kindle, Nook

The print version of Tigress remains at its regular, highly affordable price of $11.99 at Amazon.

After Dragon*Con, the ebook prices are likely to increase. Though if sales are strong, I might leave one of them at $.99. Maybe. But only one.

Pawan Kor from Wrath of the White Tigress

SDH takes place on the island continent of Okoro, which I’d guess is about the size of Australia. It is on the other side of Kaiwen from Pawan Kor which is the southern portion of a massive continent, the name of which I cannot remember at the moment. (Yeah, I know. Cut me some slack. I came up with all the big picture stuff a decade ago and haven’t needed all of it yet.) Pawan Kor is bigger than Okoro. Perhaps as big across as Spain to India.

A few clues that show the books share a common world:

• Two moons: Zhura Dark Moon and Avida Bright Moon. You’ll note that their names are the same in both settings. An odd but intentional choice.

• Magic functions the same and a channeling stone is generally required. The channeling stones are called qavra in WWT and kavaru in SDH. Note their names are different, an odd but intentional choice. Qavra are best worked by people of Zindarhi descent, or their mysterious, remaining ancestors the Qaiar Zindarhi. For those beings, use of the stones is natural. I will say no more.

• The nature of deities is the same. Greater deities linked to celestial bodies and big concepts. Such deities are distant and perhaps have no direct impact on the world. Many lesser deities of varying powers, mostly minor spirits. (The world is primarily animistic.) There’s a lot going on in the background that will be revealed in time. I mapped out the source of magic and deities for the world, based on events that took places tens of thousands of years before the events of these novels. I will say no more.

• White steel which can cut through magical energies and beings. Dark iron which is the opposite of white steel. It’s able to soak up energies. I’m sure there are other small details that I’m just not thinking about at the moment. Hell, I’m likely forgetting something major. And I may be holding out on something.
  
  

I have included in this post the maps for SDH and WWT, but these are simplified views of larger, more detailed maps that I’m not sharing yet.

Northern Okoro from Storm Dragon

Chains of a Dark Goddess should have the larger view of Pawan Kor along with a focused map for the story itself. The bigger map of Okoro will appear with Legacy of the Lost Gods. Why am I holding out? Because I’m still refining some of the locations and want them to be as accurate.

DAVID WISEHART: What is your writing process?

DAVID ALASTAIR HAYDEN: These days, I get up, climb the stairs to my office, and begin banging out a tale on one of my vintage manual typewriters, probably the Hermes Rocket or the Olympia SF or the Olympia SM-3, all from the 1950’s. (I have a lovely, mint-condition 1929 Royal Portable that’s begging for some story work as well.) At some point I will scan in those words, using some OCR software, and edit them in Scrivener on my Macbook. From there, I will generate an ebook using Scrivener and Calibre. This week, I just did the layout for the print edition of Wrath of the White Tigress in QuarkXpress 9.

On the artistic side of things, I have completed five novels and my writing process seems to change with each one. To finish my first book, I had to break down and plot every step my characters took. I needed to see the whole structure of the thing to complete it. I had so many aborted starts before that. The second and third books didn’t need quite so much support. I did a more basic chapter-by-chapter outline for them, but ended up deviating off in more interesting directions as I explored their stories. My fourth book completely ignored the plot I made for it, so I didn’t bother to plot the fifth one at all. I just developed a basic concept and started writing seat-of-the-pants style. Next time, I think I’ll write a one-page summary and then go from there.

Read the rest of the interview.